A restrictive adjective clause is one that is necessary to identify the noun that it modifies.. The professor who/that teaches English 1101 is an excellent teacher.. The adjectives claus
Trang 1RESTRICTIVE AND NONRESTRICTIVE ADJECTIVE CLAUSES
1 Definition
a A restrictive adjective clause is one that is
necessary to identify the noun that it modifies
b A restrictive clause provides “essential”
or “identifying” information and does not
require commas
2 Examples
a The professor who/that teaches English 1101
is an excellent teacher
b The woman whom/that/ø you met at my party
is a former astronaut
c The newspaper which/that is on the table has
an interesting article on polar bears
d The television show which/that/ I watchedø
last night was informative
3 Explanation
a The adjectives clauses in these examples are
essential in order to identify which professor, which woman, which newspaper, or which television show is meant
b Notice that restrictive (essential) clauses can
be introduced with that, who, whom, or which and that the object pronoun can be
eliminated (ø) in examples b and d
1 Definition
a A nonrestrictive clause is one that is not
necessary to identify the noun that it modifies
b A nonrestrictive clause provides additional,
but “nonessential” information and requires the use of commas
2 Examples
a Professor Hach, who teaches English 1101, is
an excellent professor
b Sally Ride, whom you met at my party, is a
former astronaut
c The Miami Herald, which is on the table, has
an interesting article on polar bears
d Dateline, which I watched last night, was
informative
3 Explanation
a The adjective clauses in these examples are
not necessary to identify the nouns that they modify We know which professor, woman, newspaper and TV show because they have been identified by name, so the information provided in the adjective clause is additional
or nonessential
b Nonrestrictive (nonessential) clauses cannot
be introduced with that, and the pronoun
object cannot be eliminated
Leslie Biaggi, 2003 Miami-Dade College
Document downloaded from the “For the Classroom” area of The Grammar Exchange website, www.longman.com/grammarexchange Pearson Education.